David Daleiden calls himself a citizen journalist. His method for getting information is to lie about who he is, then record what people tell him without their knowledge. Because he got officials from Planned Parenthood to discuss selling the body parts of aborted fetuses, he is being charged with fifteen criminal felony counts . . .

The charges against Deleiden were announced last March by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a press release that identified his accusers as Doe #1 through 14. The 15th felony charge is for conspiracy. In a related civil case, a federal judge issued an injunction forbidding Deleiden from releasing other surreptitiously recorded videos . . .

Deleiden’s case was initially opened by Becerra’s predecessor, Kamala Harris, who last November was elected to the U.S. Senate. Ferreira claims that Planned Parenthood lobbied Harris to bring the charges to punish Deleiden. Says co-counsel Steve Cooley, “This is a politically motivated prosecution” . . .

Deleiden doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong as a journalist. “”I’m a skilled citizen journalist who orchestrated an in-depth undercover study of the country’s biggest abortion business,” he told me. “I’m not the only person doing stuff like this. There’s a new generation of citizen journalists who use these tactics. But because we went after the sacred cows of the California political establishment, they’re bringing the hammer down on me” . . .

“It’s not a crime to lie or misrepresent yourself,” Deleiden says. “If we accept that it is, we would have no undercover police operations, no undercover journalism. It’s a non-literal use of information to capture a bigger truth.” (Read more from “Planned Parenthood Video Trial – Is Free Speech or Privacy Under Fire?” HERE)